Fox News bullies organized labor in run-up to Labor Day
Fox News figures have attacked labor unions in the days leading up to Labor Day, a national holiday originally created to honor the victories of the labor movement and the achievements of American workers.
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Fox News figures assail organized labor
Beck: "I think the unions are like Biff," the bully from Back to the Future. During the September 2 edition of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck said, "You know what I think of some of the unions? I actually think of Back to the Future. I think the unions are like Biff." Beck showed a clip featuring Biff Tannen, the bully in the film, and added, "But in the end, once you really realize who they are and you're not afraid anymore, it always turns out exactly the same way for the bully every time." Beck then showed a clip of Biff working for the man he originally bullied.
Malkin accused unions of embezzlement, violence, and corruption. During the September 2 edition of Fox News' America Live, Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin accused labor leaders of "embezzlement," "violence," and "corruption."
Varney: There will be "[t]wo more union outrage stories to bring to you in our next half-hour." During the September 2 edition of Fox Business Network's Varney & Co., guest Joseph Caruso criticized a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would allow more shareholders of public companies to use proxy votes to nominate board members. Caruso claimed that unions would use the rule to "wreak havoc" by nominating labor-friendly board members. In response, Fox Business' Charles Payne suggested, "So, this will be used more as a tool of intimidation than anything else." In a subsequent tease, Varney said, "Two more union outrage stories to bring to you in our next half-hour."
Cavuto likened unions to Hurricane Earl on a "collision course on our towns." During the September 2 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto compared unions to Hurricane Earl, saying, "The monster and the mess. Your World on top of Earl's collision course with our coast and what could be unions' collision course with our towns." Cavuto added: "And get ready for Earl's wallop and, to hear some state and local governments tell it, unions' direct hit on their wallet."
Carlson: How much of the cost of a Chevy Volt is "because you have to pay the unions so much money?" During a discussion of the Chevy Volt on the September 2 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson asked, "How much of that money ... is because you have to pay the unions so much money?"
Beck: Labor hero is "indoctrinating children." During the September 1 edition of his Fox News show, Beck accused Dolores Huerta, an 80-year-old labor activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers with César Chávez, of "indoctrinating our children" because she spoke at a high school. Beck also criticized the Labor Department for spending money on what he called a "catchy tune" that included Labor Secretary Hilda Solis saying, "You work hard, and you have the right to be paid fairly," and, "[I]t is a serious problem when workers in this country are not being paid every cent they earn."
Labor Day honors the progress of the labor movement
DOL: Labor Day is "a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers." According to the U.S. Department of Labor's "History of Labor Day," Labor Day "is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."
I learned all the computer manners I needed 20 years ago running business related BBS's. Trolls have been around for a long time.
Logically R2D2 (or whatever his name is today) has been trolling this site for a while. Calling him out is just part of the fun.
We won that battle months ago here. If you're going to come here and be a successful troll, you're going to have to come up with some new stuff instead of stale, old, outdated, debunked garbage.
Please don't continue to feed this troll - they clearly aren't interested in participating in a fair and reasonable debate on this topic.
It's well established that health care costs were rising before the health care legislation was introduced. That was one of the reasons ol' George W was trying to run with a health care voucher program and health care savings accounts when he running in 2000.
Facts, Bob-bo. They're good things.
The Republicans may gain control of congress but the Democrats will have learned from the republican hissy fit and give us more of the same.
Your side went down this road first and seems to be dragging the rest of us along with you. If they do gain control, we're finished as a nation. Their policies took the economy down, and more tax cuts won't put the country back together. We're headed for an ugly place.
Today that $45 to $1 ratio is now $1080 to $1.
I guess if it wasn't for the unions it wouldn't be that bad, right?
The Volt is a gas / electric hybrid. The Leaf is an all electric vehicle.
Whichever is the better vehicle is more a matter of perspective.
Do you want a car that doesn't burn any gas (other than what was used to produce your electricity) or do you want a car that can run off the gas motor after the battery is used up.
It doesn't stop people from playing though. By the same token, everyone in America thinks they have a chance of making the same kind of money as a CEO. Go figure.
So everyone thinks they will become rich and don't want the taxes etc, only tiny tiny percentage will make it.
Granted most everything a Republican says benefits big business and takes away the liberty of the working person, but they couch their message in language that is congruent with the way people reason. They're liars and they manipulate but they know how to talk to voters.
Most elected Democrats are monumentally ignorant of the way the human mind actually makes sense of the world. They think that they can talk about facts and policy details and numbers and that will motivate people in the middle to vote for them. It doesn't work like that, we are not purely rational beings who, given the facts, will reason to the proper conclusion. We are guided by an emotional intellect and swayed by moral imperatives. Repubs understand this and it annoys me no end that Dems won't pay attention to the findings in the field of neuroscience that bear this out.
A bit weak, there, Bob.
But to answer your question--hey, if our tax dollars are being asked for to bail out the big banks, you're damn skippy that the government, as major investors, (yes, the spelling is i-n-v-e-s-t-o-r-s) should have a say in how they're run.
And, given the track records of a few, I'd like to see a few pink slips handed out to those CEO who were too fond of risk and too short of responsibility.
The topic here is unions and Fox's ongoing attempt to smear them. Stick with that topic or move on.
See, once again you show you have no actual experience to speak of. What would the federal government have to do with regulating bonuses if there was collective bargaining? I have worked in management for companies with unions and companies without unions. Both have the same number of nonsense that management has to put up with. Both have a majority of employees that are dedicated, hard working, and proud of the company they work for. The only true difference is that with collective bargaining the employees have a chance at representation. Individually, they do not.
Companies are not moral nor immoral. They are amoral. If they can screw over a few bucks from each employee to put more money in their own coffers, they will. And, not just to stay afloat but to make just a little more profit. At some point, we are making just a little more profit in order to turn in just a little better quarterly earnings report by sticking it to our own working class. Our entire country does better when the working class does well. It is actually a patriotic thing.
What these tools keep forgetting, while making excuses for over the top compensation for CEOs, is that the upper 2% getting richer doesn't help the economy. It is that lower 98% that buy the vast majority of product that drives our economy.
Why do American CEOs feel that they deserve the pay rates they do?
What do American CEOs do that is so much different than the rest of the world?
Comparison of the world to th U.S for CEO pay.
Japan 11:1
Germany 12:1
France 15:1
Italy 20:1
Canada 20:1
South Africa 21:1
Britain 22:1
Hong Kong 41:1
Mexico 47:1
Venezuela 50:1
United States 475:1
The issue is, are they 40 TIMES better than any other country's CEO's? Are they all 10 times better?
Of course they aren't.
I honestly laughed when I discovered I had an evil twin. In a twisted way it's rather flattering.
I haven't reported him because I'm certain the people here can see through this stunt.
It looks like exactly the type of wingnut that would get tired of making a fool of itself trying to win arguments, and resorts to mimicking others screen names and baiting reasonable posters into something he can flag.
This is something that was covered in an item that didn't generate much interest here, but one that I think is pretty interesting.
Notice our weaselly friend is mentioned in the comments there, too. That type of childish game-playing is a pretty clear admission that it doesn't really have anything of substance to work with.
I remember that guy from a few years who was hijacking your name to respond to people.
I knew something was really wrong when you started arguing with me.
And then you would reply twice to my comments, one reply agreeing and the other one arguing.
I forgot all about that until I just read your comment in the linked thread.
I think that was the only time I've ever flagged anybody on a website. I have no problem with peoples own words being posted and standing, but trying to pin phony posts on other people was about the lowest thing I've ever seen.
Are unions taken to be as vital to capitalism as greed? That is a matter of opinion, tradition and civil law. Whether your valiant "shouldering of risk" will be rewarded 20 or 200 or 2000 times as much as a days work depends on how much power workers have through their union to counter the power you have through money and ownership. This isn't some game where the rules on the box say you get yours and everyone else gets what's left, just because. This is life, and workers will fight for what they want, same as you, bub. Better get your mouthpiece in and your gloves on. Another six to twelve months of this economy may bring workers back to their senses and back to the union halls.
We can only fight for and educate for greater unity of the working class.
Second, how can you really argue that a company needs to control labor costs during a bad economy by laying people off while also arguing that CEOs should continue to pay themselves 1000 times what they pay their employees during this same economy? And expect us to believe that you have ANY real world experience? Sorry, I ain't buying it.
I honestly can't tell if this is a joke or not.
We're not that stupid, doofus. Maybe that would fool YOU - it doesn't fool us, dummy!
In fact, we do NOT criticize every word, especially from someone who is actually TRYING to participate in a fair and reasonable debate.
But from trolls, yeah, they get attacked for anything and everything, because that's what people who aren't actually interested in a debate deserve!
BJ/bee1cee2/borgleader (and now, apparently, a somewhat warped Mary-Kate to my Ashley) is well known to many of us on here. His "discussions" with us are largely attempts to provoke anger and outrage. That's not to say he doesn't, from time to time, make the attempt the discuss the topic at hand. Nevertheless, on those rare occasions he'll often attempt to give his weak points a kind of boost by making dubious claims about a superior I.Q., and a superior education.
The thing is our self proclaimed super-genius has often shown himself to much like Wile E. Coyote and while he's snickering about how intelligent he is he'll drop an anvil on his own head by offering posts filled with spelling, grammar, and factual errors that have become the stuff of legend.
Hey, I've frequently made those same mistakes myself. The thing is, unlike my current "twin" (who, in terms of writing, shares a Danny DeVito to Arnold Schwarzenegger resemblance) I haven't made empty and ridiculous boasts to give my posts an illusion of authority.
BJ/beecee's history with us has painted a target on his back. In this specific case we're not getting on our high horse so much as we're reminding a jockey that we can all see through his claims of being as tall as Shaquille O'Neil.
Y is effectively limited to 1, that is a monopoly.
Price and market elasticity come into play of course.
Y is effectively limited to 1, that is a monopoly.
Price and market elasticity come into play of course.
I love that you attempt to be condescending. As if you actually understand how upper management and CEOs work. You clearly do not. You actually attempt to suggest that CEOs are making 1000 times what their employees make in order to ensure profitability for their company. Once again, get a job and get out of your mother's basement. You are in for a rude awakening out here in the real world.
No, but most people who are in management positions, including CEO's should be held accountable in both situations. Good managers will take responsibility for good and bad times, or they should. I manage a group of around 60 student/adult staff members and take responsibility of their successes, mistakes and failures all the time. I also manage 2 residence halls of around 600 students and must take responsibility for whatever happens in them good or bad.
CEO salaries are as crazy as our elected officials.' Holding them responsible might make them more appreciative of what they make monetarily; and, don't get me started on pro-sports salaries. It's all nuts, IMHO.
And that does not even address the issue, which is why do CEOs make 1000 times the pay of frontline employees today when 40 years ago they made 45 times more? Can you really not see how damaging this would be to our working class in this country? Are you that obtuse? Have you ever heard of the French Revolution? My company can keep running if the CEO leaves. We will just find another one. We cannot run without our frontline employees. That is why collective bargaining is so vital for the employee. Individually, they live by the good grace of management. Collectively, the company lives by the good grace of the employees.
More or less perverse than calling corporatist Obama a Marxist?
just to name two
Beck is seeking to master Rove's disinformation model and transform it to his own Bizarro Beck paradigm
There's a difference between counter-intuitive thinking and outright illogic. I do the former, Beck does the latter.
Are you asking people to prove a negative? No, wait, you're not asking anything because you didn't use a question mark.
Not by you, I notice. But if that's true, that EVERY UNION AND MOREOVER, EVERY UNION MEMBER IN THIS COUNTRY uses violence and intimidation, let's send them to Iraq as independent contractors. Then Uncle Dick can get even MORE money out of that little adventure.
But the true measure of a group is looking at their overall behavior. And unions existed because business owners were bullying and intimidating workers, over and over again. And those business owners still do it, because they can. Unions don't have that same overarching troublesome behavior! They have been fighting FOR the rights of the employees most often, employees who, for the most part, were being used and abused by the employers. Yes, of course, unions took too much at times. But the fair way to judge them is by their overall record.
And it's unfair to judge them as cbcbcb tries to do, claiming that ALL unions are bullies. And that's because he's a troll poster, trying to enflame people here.
It appears from Steve Rattner's new book about the auto bailout, that the folks at Fox can take lessons from the Administration'a Chief of Staff in bullying and belittling unions (UAW in particular).
The guy whose company, Quadrangle, just had to pay a huge fine and reimbursement (something like $12 million total) to the SEC and a pension fund for wrongdoing?
The company that said in a press release
"On April 15, 2010, Quadrangle stated, "We wholly disavow the conduct engaged in by Steve Rattner, who hired the New York State Comptroller’s political consultant, Hank Morris, to arrange an investment from the New York State Common Retirement Fund. That conduct was inappropriate, wrong, and unethical."
The guy who's being investigated by NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for wrongdoing?
That guy? That's the guy who you want me to rely upon? That's the opinion about the auto bailout you think I should listen to?
Really, weasel?
You are NOT going to be successful as a weasel, Wesley, using either screen name. Either straighten up, and use your intellect for good, or continue to be mocked and dismissed.
Your last two comments are laughably lame in two ways: 1) I have no idea to whom you refer. I would guess that if you contrast his writing style to mine, you would see different approaches,wording and syntax. 2) you have shown yourself as being the mouthpiece for half truths and misdirection. At least you could have been honest and acknowledged that he was vetted, and appointed by the administration (President Obama). No hearings, no Senate approval, no nothing. To have acknowledged that would have been the honest thing to do. But in your case, it would have rendered your entire comment above as completely idiotic!
I never said that the decision by the Treasury Dept and Tim Geitner to hire the guy was a good decision.
YOU'RE the doofus, remember, who tried to hold him up as someone whose written opinion in a book could and should be relied upon, not me!
Do you REALLY think we can't trace back the origins of comments to understand the context, Weasel?
And stop with the "I'm not Wesley, and I don't know who he is" routine. I identified you as Wesley's clone months ago, just like I identified Rational Conservative as RightON's clone.
And if you think that we don't know tht trolls who have found that their screen names have lost their luster don't try to make slight changes in grammar, syntax, etc, then you're stupider than you already appear to be.
He wasn't "appointed" by President Obama, doofus. That's a false talking point that was never true. In a press release from February, 2009, the White House told us that Obama was nominating quite a few people for appointments, and THEN they listed separately that Rattner was going to be named "Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury." Geithner brought him in.
And HOW he was brought in had NOTHING to do with YOUR assertion that he was someone whose opinions we should listen to.
If, in fact, as it looks like, he was a disreputable character, then we shouldn't value his opinion very much. And, if, as YOU assert, he wasn't vetted very well, or if he had been, he wouldn't have gotten hired, then it's even MORE reason for us to NOT pay attention to what he wrote!
But stupid troll that you are, you somehow think that attacking him helps your case? Really?
See, you have SUCH a kneejerk response that demands that you criticize Obama every chance you get that you attacked him for this "appointment" when that attack damages YOUR earlier assertion! What a doofus!
And your "2)"? Where have I shown myself to be "the mouthpiece for half truths and misdirection"? Were you trying to claim that by destroying this guy's credibility, I was somehow doing that because I didn't also mention that he was employed for a short while by the US Treasury Dept? How did I do that? I simply described this guy's clear and obvious shortcomings.
Really poor job - if you're going to be the paid troll who gets assigned the weekend shift, you can't drink on the job, you know!
It is so typical for the hypocrites of the FOX NEWS Greed Machine to rant on and on and on about the evils of unions.
Here are a few questions you will never, ever hear any of the FOX NEWS telepromter readers dare to ask each other:
- Do you have a contract with FOX NEWS?
- Did you negotiate with FOX NEWS for any of the terms in that contract?
- Do you expect FOX NEWS to comply with the terms of the contract?
- Would you sue FOX NEWS if they violated the terms of their contract?
and finally...
- Would you be willing to work for FOX NEWS without a contract?
And this is a bad thing? Unions are a bad thing to whom? Tell that to those who are working 1, 2, 3, or more minimum wage or waitressing jobs where salaries depend upon tips that are often short or don't come at all. Minimum wage is a freakin' joke. It hasn't kept up with the cost of living for years. I wonder how many elite folks out there, conservative and liberal alike, even wonder what hard-working waiters/waitresses make per hour. Do they even care? The only time I won't tip is if the service is god-awful. I make it a habit to tip the gas station attendant when I get full-service service. I always tip my hair stylist. These folks are what keep me coming back for their services and deserve a little "extra" in my book.
Sure, there's corruption within the ranks of unions, but I'm supposed to believe that our government at all levels isn't corrupt as well? I'm supposed to believe that folks like Beck, Limbaugh, Hannnity, O'Reilly, etal are corruption-free?
I put my rose-colored glasses aside many, many years ago.
The Industrial revolution broke that down and it was not until the formation of workers' combinations in the 19th century that this recognition was revived - often under the 8 hours banner.
Those who attack labour unions are attacking society by trying to fragment the many wage and salary earners who make it up.
and Ms Malkin,
maybe, just maybe, we should put ALL of the notable violence and corruption throughout American History
(not to mention the General History of Empire Building) on the table for discussion.
......or are you really just ideologues and simpletons?
hmmm, let me think, yes, I do think so.
;o)
Presently, union membership is down to a 12.4% sliver of the working force. While 37% of the public sector is unionized, only 7% of the private sector has organized representation. The worker hasn't been so at the mercy of the wealthy owner since the late 19th century.
We are at a crossroads of history. The choice has never been simpler. Go left if you want America to prosper for all. Take a hard right if you want America to fall further into the abyss of a third world indentured servant culture.
Randy
Overall, unions were, and ARE, great things that got wonderful results for both unionized workers and the non-union employees who indirectly benefit from the accomplishments of the unions! But they did get greedy on occasion.
But you're right that characterizing them as bullies, in general, is grossly incorrect and is a distortion of reality.
No legitimate news organization would behave that way.
Both are massive, but the latter is all encompassing and all purveying, while the former is but a subset of the latter's boundless totality.
If 19th century capitalists could have restrained their greed, then unions would be as needful to the security of the workforce as a bucket of water is to the moisture content of the ocean.
Randy
These are mostly the low-information type voters who watch a little mainstream news and opinion shows on TV, listen to some talk radio, and get anonymous wingnut emails.
It's almost like a word association game, you say "union", they say "corrupt" or "thug".
There's probably more documented corruption and abuse in many other groups than in unions, but I never see that reaction if somebody mentions corporate America, the police, the church, financial industries, etc.
Probably the closest other example to that Pavlovian reaction comes from the topic of politics,but the ones who have been trained to hate unions have generally been equally conditioned to see corruption everywhere except for on the corrupt and worker-hating right.
Happy Labor Day to all those who value and respect hard work. To all the Republicans who only admire the people who can swindle the most out of those who produce, try to get through the day.
That's funny....Beck looks EXACTLY like a smaller scale Biff...crew cut, stupid expression and all.
The sad part is no one seems really to know how to make capitalism work anymore to produce the surplus that fed 'growth.' The kind of growth we have now seems at bit like cancer.